The Tale of the First Flame
by Oddball 5.56
Summary: A perfectly accurate, faithful to canon, completely 100% perfect retelling of the tale of the Four Lords of the First Flame. Rated M because I explain how Manus' arm got so big.


**The Super Abridged, Slightly Inaccurate Story Of Lighting Of The First Flame**

Four nondescript beings live among the rest of their kind in the roots of the great archtrees. Everyone who attempts to leave is turned to stone by the great, curse-breathing, rock-skinned creatures on the surface, called "dragons". Why? Who fucking knows. Dragons are assholes.

"I'm hungry," says one.

"We know, Nito," says another kindly. "We are all hungry. Alas, we've naught but lichen to rely upon for sustenance."

"Do you ever stop complaining?" A third growls in irritation.

"Be kind to him, Quel," says the second being. "He may not be the smartest of us, but he is kind of heart, and deserves not thy scorn."

"If you quit coddling him, he wouldn't be such an idiot, Gwyn," Quel snaps.

"G-guys," a fourth mutters, "t-there's something-"

"Hold thy tongue, Manus," Gwyn snaps disdainfully. He didn't like Manus. Such a cowardly, furtive little bastard, he was.

"B-but Gwyn," Manus says insistently, yanking on Gwyn's arm and pointing. "Look!"

"…What. The Fuck. Is That?" Gwyn asks, dropping his ridiculously formal speech pattern in shock. There was naught in the great hollows of the arch trees but darkness and lichen, but before them sat…something.

"Oooh, it's pretty!" Nito claims enthusiastically.

"You think lichen is pretty," Quel deadpans.

"But this is _super_ pretty, like you!" Nito claims in a sweet voice. Quel contemplates ending her suffering then and there. Or Nito's.

"What…what a strange and marvelous sight!" Gwyn shouts, having recovered from being a normal being and continuing to speak in his idiotic, super formal and outdated way. "Forsooth wherefore beseecheth?"

"That doesn't even make any sense!" Quel cries in exasperation.

"…it's not only pretty, it's warm!" Nito says happily. While Gwyn and Quel are arguing over Gwyn's idiotic way of speaking, Nito has approached the flame.

"What? What does 'warm' mean?" Gwyn asks, because apparently the world was a constant temperature that never, ever changed, so they had absolutely no concept of temperature at all.

"It means warm!" Nito declares, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. Cause, you know, it is.

"Did you sleep through Frampt's lessons again, Gwyn?" Quel drawls. She already knows the answer. "He was teaching us about Disparity. And apparently I was the _only_ one paying attention," she says as she glares at all three of them, "because _that_ is called Fire. It is the First Flame."

"Yeah, whatever, I'm too busy fucking bitches to listen to that giant, moldy, toothy penis," Gwyn says, once more forgoing his formal speech pattern because I'm too lazy to figure out how to write it. He then approaches the flame, but recoils, because unlike Nito he's not a gigantic idiot. "Quel, what's a synonym for very warm?"

"Hot," she deadpans.

"Yeah, well, this shit is hot," Gwyn says as he wipes sweat off of his forehead. "Nito, what in the fuck are you doing!?"

"IT'S SO WARM!" Nito cries as he jumps head-first into the first flame like a moron of indescribable proportions.

"NITO NO!" Gwyn cries in despair, falling to his knees. "My only friend, consumed by this 'First Flame!' Oh the horror! Wherefore forsooth beseecheth mineself, First Flame!?"

"Oh thank the dragons," Quel sighs in relief. "Now if only Gwyn would throw himself in there, we'd all be saved."

"Q-Quel," Manus says timidly. She shoots him a withering glare, but he finds a spine somewhere and manages not to dissolve into a puddle of misery. "I-I don't think Nito's dead…"

"Oh _dammit_ " she curses as a being walks out of the flame. Or rather, floats. Whereas before this being was the same shriveled, pathetic looking sack of shit the rest of them were, he was apparently turned into a giant, levitating collection of bones and skulls holding a giant fucking sword. He was also large enough to scrape his undoubtedly empty head on the ceiling of the hollow.

"This 'flame' thing is awesome!" the reborn Nito cries happily, waving his sword around and casually decapitating some innocent bystanders. He doesn't seem to notice. "I was really, really, really warm-"

"It's called 'hot', you fucking ignoramus!" Quel practically screeches in exasperation.

"And then I didn't feel nothing, but then this thingy flew into me and now I'm better than ever!"

"…what 'thingy' are you talking about?" Quel asks quietly.

"I dunno, it kinda looked like all the stuff that flies out of the people that the dragons turn to stone," Nito shrugs, rattling his bones.

"NITO, MY FRIEND!" Gwyn continues lamenting, because he's such an overdramatic dumbass that he hasn't even noticed his friend is not only alive, but apparently a large pile of sentient corpses. "Forthwith thy name is sacred and-"

"Get out of my way, lummox," Quel snaps, pushing past Nito. She reaches cautiously to the First Flame, and a "thingy" leaps out at her. Within seconds, she fucktuples in size and goes from an emaciated proto-zombie into a literally smoking hot woman with grey lips (for some fucking reason) and gold-hemmed black robes, holding a stick.

"Interdasting," Quel says distractedly as she looks at her new clothes. "And now my boobs are bigger than Amy's! I always told that little bitch that I'd outgrow her one day…" She then waves her stick around experimentally, and a blast of flame shoots out and lights Nito's cloak on fire. Quel laughs as he flails to put it out, and a cruel glint comes to her eye, as she says "Oh, I could get used to this…"

"NITOOOOOOO!" Gwyn shouts in misery. Desperately, he lunges past Nito (who he hasn't figured out is Nito yet) and touches the first flame. Unlike Quel, he gets fucking electrocuted. Quel laughs cruelly and Manus chuckles quietly. Seconds later, however, Gwyn also fucktuples in size, gets a big ass sword, some regal looking robes, and his hair gets long, grey, and shaggy as shit. Quel groans and Manus sighs in disappointment. The bullying will only get worse for him now.

"I AM THE LORD OF SUNLIGHT!" Gwyn shouts as he pelvic-thrusts and a lightning spear immolates some more innocent bystanders.

"What?" Quel asks incredulously. "You shoot lightning you idiot, what in the fuck does that have to do with the sun?"

"I. AM. THE. LORD. OF. SUNLIGHT!" he reiterates. "COME NOW, FRIEND NITO, WE FACE THE DRAGONS IN SINGLE COMBAT!"

"Face the…are you insane? You're going to get killed!" Quel shouts. Gwyn ignores her and Nito happily comes along.

Twenty minutes later, they come back covered in bits of stone where they weren't quite fast enough to dodge the dragons.

"THESE THINGS ARE INVINCIBLE!" Gwyn shouts in despair.

"They're made of fucking rock," Quel snaps. "Let me guess, you tried punching them?"

"Uh…yes?" he responds. Quel considers setting herself alight.

"H-hey guys, there was another Lord Soul in there," Manus says, pulling their attention to him, where he's holding what looks like straight up black vomit. He isn't any bigger, but he has a set of plain black clothes on and is no longer emaciated. And no, he didn't get a weapon, because fuck Manus.

"Manus, put that down, you fool," Quel snaps. "That's not a Lord Soul."

"But it is, look!" he cries. Quel then averts her eyes as Manus holds it in front of his pelvis and shakes it a few times. Seconds later, because Manus isn't exactly known for his stamina, more bits of the black vomit shoot out of it. To Quel's simultaneous horror and interest, everyone hit by the splooge transforms into their own outfits.

"And it never runs out either!" Manus says, before shaking it again. Quel's embarrassed to watch, but indeed it never got any smaller, even as he splooged all over the crowd of bystanders.

"I HAVE A PLAN!" Gwyn shouts upon seeing this. "WE WERE BEATEN BECAUSE WE WERE OUTNUMBERED! BUT WITH YOUR SPLOOGE MACHINE-"

"We're not calling it that," Quel instantly said. "How about the…Dark Soul?"

"BUT WITH YOUR DARK SPLOOGE," Gwyn corrected, "WE SHALL HAVE NUMBERS TO FACE THE DRAGONS!"

"Uh, G-Gwyn," Manus muttered, "I'm not exactly sure this is a good-"

"COME, FATHER OF THE SPLOOGE!" Gwyn shouts, grabbing Manus like a doll and jabbing at the crowd of Manus look-alikes with his sword. "COME, SONS OF MAN…US! WE SHALL DO HONORABLE COMBAT."

Ten minutes later, they returned. Manus was the only one of his kind to survive. Nito was also missing a few skulls this time.

"BLAST AND DAMNATION!" Gwyn roars. "DOES NOTHING FAZE THEM!?"

"Actually, I might be of assistance," a voice says. They all turn to see a dragon without scales. Quel had heard of him; some kind of mutant that got constantly picked on by the other dragons. Gwyn goes to attack because he's a fucking mongoloid who solves every problem with violence, but Quel trips him and stands on his neck before he does something stupid.

"Alright, talk, wyrm," Quel says disinterestedly. "As much as I hate these two, even I don't want to see them keep getting their asses kicked."

"Could one of you, perchance, conjure lightning?" the dragon asked. Quel immediately sees where he's going with this, and mouths "sunlight, not lightning". "Er, that is to say, sunlight?"

"CONJURE SUNLIGHT!?" Gwyn shouts, shooting to his feet with a grin. "LOOK NO FURTHER; IT IS I, THE LORD OF SUNLIGHT!" the dragon looks at him like he's insane, and shoots a hesitant look to Quel, but she nods.

"Well, alright then," the dragon says. "See, dragons are invincible because of their stone scales. But …er, 'sunlight' can peel them off. Then your little emo friend there and the girl with the stick can just plague/burn them to death.

"THANK YOU, DRAGON!" Gwyn booms. "THOUGH I AM SWORN TO SLAY YOUR KIND TO THE LAST, YOU WILL BE SPARED; I NAME THEE DUKE! WHAT IS THEY NAME, DUKE!?"

"Er…Seath?" he responds hesitantly. He is no longer certain he wants to help them. Nobody, not even the bullies he's dealt with his whole life, deserve to have _this_ inflicted on them.

"VERY WELL THEN, DUKE SEATH!" Gwyn shouts. "TO COMBAT WE GO! MANUS, SPLOOGE ON MORE OF THESE WORTHLESS MEATSACKS; WE SHALL MAKE SOMETHING OF YOU YET!"

By the time Manus had finished spreading his splooge around, his left arm was significantly more muscular than his right. _What kind of a man jerks left handed_? Quel wonders. As Gwyn marches out with his new slaves, he shoots an expectant look at Quel. While the last thing she feels like doing is something as labor-intensive as dragon-slaying, she figures she has nothing better to do and nods back before following him.

The following crusade, of course, is known to all. Gwyn, with the son Miyazaki couldn't be fucked to name leading his mighty Silver Knights, peels apart the stone scales of the dragons. Nito unleashes a miasma of death and disease. The Witch of Izalith and the five or six children she apparently found time to give birth to weave great firestoms. Because Seath the Scaleless betrayed his own due to being tired of being the group punching bag, the dragons are no more.

Then, Gwyn goes on a power trip, declares himself a god, enslaves humanity, kills/imprisons Manus, and begins the reign of the Gods. Of course, since Gwyn's a ginormous fuckwad, he tries to delay the Age of Dark as long as he can, even going so far as to bullying Quel into recreating the first flame, despite EONS of her telling him "it's not going to work you fucking lummox". Eventually, Gwyn runs out of meatshields. But too entrenched in his idiotic beliefs to back down now, he instead feeds himself to the First Flame as Kindling to squeeze every last possible second out of the Age of Fire as he can.

We all know the story from there. Some masochist with a fixation with saying "well, what is it!?" when he just barely survived the duel goes on a killing spree across Lordran, putting all of the tortured and insane souls of the victims of Gwyn's fuckery out of their misery. He then either goes full idiot and continues Gwyn's asinine plan, or brings about the Age of Dark.

 **AN:**

 **Still writing Kingdom Under Fire Emblem, but a friend and I were bullshitting about Dark Souls lore and I decided to make this after postulating how the Lords came to claim their particular Lord Souls. QED, Nito's an idiot, Gwyn's an idiot with just enough brains to actually do damage, Quel's just going along with it out of boredom, and Manus created humanity by jerking it (how tf do you think he got that giant ass arm of his?)**

 **I hope you all enjoyed.**


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